Use common sense. If you're talking on a discussion thread about the novel talk away. If you're on another thread it's polite to tag any significant plot twists. Forbid the effort of a couple extra mouse clicks to tag something.

Even though I'm a supporter of the 6-month rule, I decided to do this since none of the anti-spoiler people will.

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You know, although doing a poll on the matter is a good idea, your wording of your original post comes across as pretty passive aggressive and petty.

As I started the spoilers, a discussion thread, I did think about doing a poll, but thought better of it as I prefer discussion over posting in a poll as that way you can gauge a persons opinion more as it forces them to explain themselves.

But yes, the six months rule is the best option and maybe the two threads could be merged?

Somewhere between 6 months and just use your own discretion. As in, no code needed if you're in a thread that says it contains spoilers. As that's the point of being in that thread, you can talk openly about what happened there.

And obviously NEVER in a thread title, at least if it can be avoided. I guess if you, for example, want to ask a question about

Sisko

, it could be considered spoiler-ish about the current state of that issue vice where the show left off. I guess 6 month rule works there, nothing in the open that's new, and avoid it as best as possible for thread titles.

I had a hard time deciding between 6-months and use-your-own-discretion, but I came down on the discretion side because I feel that 6 months is just too short a period - I'd probably have an easier time supporting a 12-month rule.

That having been said, I do think having a 6-month rule is much preferable to having a "code all spoilers" or "code no spoilers" rule.

Whenever I post about something, I probably tend to err on the side of caution and spoiler-code things that others may feel don't need them. But I don't expect everyone to follow my way and I wouldn't get upset if I accidentally got spoiled by reading something about a book that is, say, 5 or 10 years old that I just don't happen to have read yet. I've read just about everything published since the "A Time To..." series except for Vanguard and NF, but there's a lot of stuff from about 1998-2004 that I haven't read yet (working on it, though). I understand that coming to this forum carries the potential of accidential spoilage and I'm prepared to accept that risk.

I do definitely support the idea of blanket spoiler warnings for threads involving new books and I feel entering those threads before you've read the book should be at your own risk. I will visit those threads before the book is actually published to see the artwork and see how others feel about the book, but once it is actually out I stay away from the thread until I've read the book. It's worked pretty well for me so far.

I went with "use you own discretion" as I usually err on the side of caution.

I think six months is fine and posting open spoilers in a thread clearly marked for spoilers for a certain topic is fine.

I put a post about the ending of "Synthesis" in spoiler code just yesterday. As I had just finished it I thought there might be others in the same boat. I did so because the thread wasn't about "Synthesis" and I wanted to play it safe for others sake.

Use your own discretion when it comes to spoilers .That's what I voted for. If your interested in a novel and read spoilers for books in any series are curious that's up to the person who wants to more about the continued storylines like the upcoming TNG/Ds9 The fall book series.

Given that the poll isn't multiple choice, I'm going with best judgement because not all spoilers are going to cause a book to be spoiled. But I do feel that the moderators would need to take an active roll when an an open spoiler is reported as being in need of a spoiler code. If a spoiler is reported, it should be then put in a spoiler code as someone feels it's too big a spoiler to be out in the open. If reported spoilers don't get fixed, then we'll be back to the same mess we are in now.

It's also 50% in favor of "use your own discretion", which based on your own posting history is not an approach that you would seem to prefer. Presumably you'd prefer it even less if and when posters felt that six months was more than they felt they should be held to.

Based on our prior discussion it increasingly seems to me that you're upset because you tried to upbraid someone for posting spoilers that you felt should not have been posted only to have it boomerang on you when they proceeded to ask the moderators to clarify spoiler-posting policy and it didn't work out to your satisfaction.

It's also 50% in favor of "use your own discretion", which based on your own posting history is not an approach that you would seem to prefer. Presumably you'd prefer it even less if and when posters felt that six months was more than they felt they should be held to.

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I was going to post this, but you've already taken care of it. Well done.

Well, "Use your own discretion" is essentially equivalent to "code no spoilers" in any case, since it takes away any requirement to do so. That's not to say that people -won't- do so, as I think we're generally a fairly considerate bunch, but it would remove any regulatory issues as a poster could simply say, "I didn't think my post contained anything that needed to be spoiler-coded".

Some people seem to like glossing over these types of things, but there's a massive difference between saying you should do something and you must do something.

You know, although doing a poll on the matter is a good idea, your wording of your original post comes across as pretty passive aggressive and petty.

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Yeah, sorry about that. It was late and I get very irritable when I get tired. I really need to learn not to post after about 9:00PM. Pretty much every time I do end up sticking my foot in my mouth.

I probably should have put a few more options in there, but I couldn't think of any others when I put the poll together.
I think it's also worth pointing out that if the mods do officially implement a 6-months rule, it won't mean you can't code spoilers for books older than 6-months, it just means you have to code spoilers for books new than 6-months (outside of the spoiler thread). At least I doubt very much that mods will punish someone if they code a spoiler for a year old book.